


let it all slide out

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 06:50:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's chipper outlook isn't always as indomitable as everyone thinks, and nobody will tell him how Vriska died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let it all slide out

**Author's Note:**

> I'm fairly sure this doesn't require warnings beyond what the summary would indicate, but just in case; references to major character deaths that occurred in canon. Also John acts like kind of a jerk butt.

It takes John six seconds to realise that Vriska isn't amongst the group of kids and trolls that are clambering aboard the yellow ship, laughing and chattering despite tired eyes and too-thin limbs.

These are the first words John will say to some of his closest friends, finally face to face instead of behind blue text or through the tinny hiss of headphones, but the optimism that has held out for so long is fizzing quietly down in his chest, leaving him flat, wiping away every one of the words he's spent the last three years planning.

"Hey guys," he says cautiously, "where's everyone else?"

Karkat's the last person to board, and his tired face tells John everything he needs to know.

*

Most of the time, the hurts he causes are the callous scrapes of thoughtlessness, as easily forgiven as committed, but sometimes.

Oh, _sometimes_ , he can be the worst kind of deliberate.

Dave's face edges with that peculiar brittleness he gets sometimes, shooting back something clever and wandering away with a stiffness that no amount of practised loose-limbed saunter can hide. Rose flashes darkly out of pretty lavender eyes and extracts a painfully exact retribution, which always leaves him with the feeling he came out the worse despite the careful and peculiar fairness of it.

Davesprite escapes it, having learned over the last three years how to pick the difference between a bad mood and a nasty one and preferring to abscond altogether. John always catches himself before he runs his mouth off at Jade, though there's a tiny, shameful part of him that honestly couldn't say if it was fear of disappointing his ecto-sister or fear of the _very hard_ punches she throws when suitably roused.

Terezi is pointy and clever and _cool_ in the ways that Dave tries a little too hard to be but she won't quite meet his eyes and all the _she's blind, dumpass_ in the world can't quiet the feeling that there's something to it. Kanaya seems nice enough -and _wordy_ , she's at least as bad as Rose good _gog_ -but she sends something in the lizard part of his brain screaming for the hills, and the weird gangly clown-guy doesn't say much for all he's semi-permanently attached to Karkat at the palm, so John hasn't exchanged much beyond cursory introductions with the lot of them.

Karkat, though. John can tell himself that he doesn't take it personally because he never stops yelling back, never shows anything but long teeth and sharp claws. Trolls have thicker skin than humans and his is the thickest of all, the flawless gray of heavy artillery.

It doesn't really help, and Gamzee goes flat-eyed and focussed and _creepy_ when anyone starts pushing Karkat from 'blustery' into 'angry', so John ends up avoiding him too.

It takes a few days to get properly bad, for him to get to the point where he's actively avoiding everyone because it all just starts being too much, the oilslick nastiness too difficult to hold down. It's not like he _wants_ to spill it over everyone, but he can't seem to keep it all in, and he keeps thinking _if I just knew, if I just knew what happened, maybe I could cry_ , but no matter how he asks nobody will tell him what happened to Vriska, so there's nothing to wash the oil away.

Everyone's living by 28 hour days at the moment, one of many halfway points negotiated between Earth and Alternia, and it's about 15:30 when Karkat appears on LOWAS, crabbing sideways through a Jade portal to stand directly in front of him.

"Egbert," he says flatly.

"What do you want?"

"You've been here over a day," his hands are on his hips but the effect is kind of ruined by the way his head tilts back. When puberty hit the Veil it didn't stop long on Karkat Vantas; his voice is deep enough for adulthood, his shoulders a little broad for childhood and covered in whipcord muscle, but he stands at 5'0 in dingy sneakers and still broadcasting his awareness of it in every movement. John shrugs, deliberate insolence in every line of him, slouches to emphasise the extra inches still left between them.

“If you're not here to tell me something important then I'm fine here, thanks."

"Oh, well, something _important_. I wonder what would possibly qualify as important to the illustrious John _fucking_ Egbert? Because I certainly haven't had anything better to do than be dragged into a pile of jumped up monkeys crying about how they're worried about their poor excuse for a fucking friendleader who couldn't be bothered pulling his head out of the load gaper he's crammed it into and having an adult fucking conversation instead of just sliding off to have a sulk like the whiny little wriggler he is.”

"They'll get over it.”

That seems to set something off behind red eyes because he steps closer then, yanking John around by his hood to show him a face full of long, pointed teeth.

"Oh of course, they'll get over it, never mind that you're their fucking _leader_ , never mind that they've been wearing holes through their chitinous fucking windtubes for the last sweep and a half about how _great_ it's going to be to have your ugly face in front of their oculars, but it'd just be _too much fucking effort_ to stop being so pathetic and _do your fucking job_.”

"Fuck _you_ , Karkat," John snaps, “maybe if you weren't such a shitty leader it wouldn't be a problem!” he shoves at him but Karkat's _fast_ , ducking under his arm and catching his ankle, following his subsequent fall to hover directly over John's chest, one hand shackling a wrist and the other digging painfully into a shoulder.

"I don't know what happened on that fucking ship but I am so very sure that I don't care," Karkat's gravelled voice hisses in his ear, "I have dealt with a whole lot of shit and lost way too many people already over the course of this game, and I have _no fucking patience_ for your tantrums. Now harden the fuck up, and stop being such a raving shitstation to Strider and Lalonde. You are _their_ fucking leader but you weren't here so they're _mine too_ , now, and I won't be taking any more of your hoofbeastshit, do you understand me?"

"They're my _friends_ , you douche," John snaps, shoving him back and Karkat lets him, though he doesn't quite let go, "not that you'd understand, since when do trolls care about people getting hurt? You might notice that none of my team are missing and we can keep our damn fists to ourselves, I'm not _maiming_ anyone."

"Not all of us are as psychotic as that spidery fuck was," he says flatly, and suddenly John finds strength from somewhere because he's rolled them over, sitting on top of Karkat and punching his _stupid face_.

He snarls, a low, warning noise in the back of his throat and catches John's fists, holding them tightly enough that the knuckles crack like shots, and John screams back at him, high and animalistic, " _you shouldn't have let her die!_ "

"She was supposed to _be here_ ," and he's trying desperately to keep the rage going but every second word has to be gulped past huge, wracking sobs, "she was _supposed_ to be fine, we were supposed to go on a stupid date and watch stupid movies and what's the point of God Tier if you can still _die_?"

Karkat's eyes widen. John wrenches his hands free, sits heavily on the floor and pushes one hand through his hair while Karkat sits up.

"Fuck, I'm sorry, past me is such a useless sack of shit, its been over a sweep for us but you just found out -" and John's tears turn into syrupy coughs of almost-laughter because of course, of _course_ the one thing that can be relied on across the vast reaches of time and paradox space is that Karkat hates himself and will apologise for breathing if you go at it from the right direction.

"Shut up," John hiccups, and fists his hands into that ridiculous grey symbol, buries his wet face into Karkat's neck and just _breathes_. Awkward hands flutter at his shoulders for a moment before settling, and then Karkat's making a weird _surrushurush_ noise and carding those weird yellow claw-nails through his hair.

It's surprisingly soothing, leaning against Karkat while he vibrates like a cool little engine, and after a long while John feels... _saner_. Less brittle. Quiet and sleepy and altogether more like himself, from the beat of his heart to the itch of his gambits.

"Wait, so is this like, diamond cheating? Because I don't think I'm up to fighting the clown guy for your hand in moirriage."

The flat of Karkat's hand connects with a solid _thwack_ over the back of his head, and John laughs, clean and bright and new.


End file.
